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HP’s partnership with Beats Audio has already spawned a special edition version of its high-end Envy laptop, but until now there were no mid-range models with Beats branding. Enter the DM4, a 14in laptop small enough to take on the move, decked out in Beats black and red.
The menacing colour scheme looks even better in the dark, when the keyboard tray is illuminated by red LEDs. The keyboard itself is very comfortable to type on, thanks to the full-size well-spaced keys. HP still insists on repurposing the function keys for its own multimedia shortcuts, but this can be turned off in the BIOS.
The touchpad, previously a pitfall for many HP laptops, is a little on the small side but still perfectly usable. A double-tap to the top left corner will disable it if you prefer to use a mouse, and the two separate buttons below it are easier to use than the single bar we often see on HP laptops.
The 14in screen’s 1,366×768 resolution is just about large enough to work on two documents side by side, but it’s better suited to full-screen web browsing and watching 720p video. There’s a reasonable amount of tilt and viewing angles are wide, although the glossy screen finish made working under office lighting or in direct sunlight a pain. However, it helps colours appear vibrant and the high contrast ratio made pictures look sharp and detailed.
Considering the Beats branding, we were expecting slightly better sound quality from the DM4 than on other mid-range laptops – the downward-firing stereo speakers were reasonably crisp and the tiny integrated subwoofer helped with bass, but realistically you wouldn’t want to use them for much more than watching YouTube videos.
The DM4 isn’t going to break any performance records, but it’s a very capable mid-range machine, thanks to its dual-core Intel processor. The i5-2450M runs at 2.5GHz but can Turbo Boost up to 3.1Ghz for extra power in certain applications, such as our multimedia benchmarks. Paired with a healthy 6GB of RAM, it managed to score 56 overall – you should have no problems running all your everyday applications.
The DM4 is also the first laptop we’ve seen to use one of the latest generation of AMD mobile graphics processors, the Radeon HD 7470m. However, this is essentially a rebadged version of the older HD 6490m, so we weren’t expecting to be blown away by its performance. Even so, it still managed a reasonable 26fps in our Dirt 3 test, which we run at 1,280×720 at High detail and with 4x anti-aliasing – turn down the AA and most games should be playable at 720p. The dedicated GPU can be disabled when running on battery power, helping the DM4 achieve an impressive seven hours in our light-use battery test. If you need to get some work done but don’t have a mains socket handy, you shouldn’t have to worry about running out of power.
With plenty of power in both 2D and 3D applications, the DM4 is a capable 14in laptop. Despite its size, it has room for a DVD re-writer and two USB3 ports, but at £800 it’s expensive compared to superior 15in laptops from other manufacturers such as Asus N55SF, which is the same price but significantly faster. If you’re determined to find a portable laptop capable of some light gaming for under £1,000, this is a good choice, but if portability isn’t crucial, Asus’ laptop is a better bet.
